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To become political and to become Marxists, workers need to learn about all of society, not just their own corner of it: For Chernyshevsky's novel, far more than Marx's Capital, supplied the emotional dynamic that eventually went to make the Russian Revolution.

Vera has aspirations of her own, and makes friends with the tutor of her kid brother, a medical student named Lopukhov. Wagner, in turn, provides abundant notes, explaining obscure references, making connections between parts of the novel that could easily be missed on first reading, and alerting the reader to those many passages where Chernyshevksy hinted at what he could not say outright.

As it was a work of fiction the censor passed it without a second thought. Every textbook comes with a day "Any Reason" guarantee. Come out into the light of baby boomer dating statistics college, where life is good; the path is easy and inviting.

On the one hand, the novel's condemnation of moderate reform helped to bring about the irrevocable break between radical intellectuals and liberal reformers; on the other, Chernyshevsky's socialist vision polarized conservatives' opposition to institutional reform.

Then, after a thick black line in the text, follows the incident in which Rakhmetov is involved in the plot, followed by a new numbered section entitled: Through lengthy talks with Lopukhov, Vera decides to set up a small business as a seamstress in order to gain financial independence, reinforcing their desire for equality among the sexes.

The s was a period of growing radicalism. The second is a preface from the author which voices conventional platitudes about the lack of the skill of the writer, and humbly hopes his readers will forgive him.

A Plot Summary

Lenin's hard-eyed realism about the incapacity of the workers, combined with his own fanatical will to revolution, gave birth to the idea of a party based on "professional revolutionaries" from the intelligentsia. Only then did I understand its depth.

Main points[ edit ] Lenin first confronted the so-called "Economist" trend in Russian Social Democracy, who followed the line of Eduard Bernstein. Lenin states that Marx and Engels themselves, the very founders of modern scientific socialismbelonged to this bourgeois intelligentsia.

Second, Lenin's outlook is a profound revision of orthodox Marxism. Wagner has provided full annotations to Chernyshevsky's allusions and references and to the, sources of his ideas, and has appended a critical bibliography. Lopukhov, realising that he is in the way, and that his marriage to Vera was only in order to help her achieve her independence, removes himself from the scene, with the assistance and under the guidance of an extraordinary man, Rakhmetov, so as not to block their happiness.

In the words of Tibor Szamuely: See what good care I take of you? On the one hand, the novel's condemnation of moderate reform helped to bring about the irrevocable break between radical intellectuals and liberal reformers; on the other, Chernyshevsky's socialist vision polarized conservatives' opposition to institutional reform.

He explained that Bernstein's positions were opportunista point expressed by the French socialist Alexandre Millerandas in taking a post in a bourgeois government.

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The portrait of Rakhmetov, the extraordinary man, is intended to show the ideal revolutionary, and to describe the process of becoming committed to the revolution, and the form that commitment should take. However, Vera has many other aspirations of her own and longs to be free from her household.

An introduction by Katz and Wagner places the novel in the context of nineteenth-century Russian social, political, and intellectual history and literature, and explores its importance for several generations of Russian radicals.

Eventually, Kirsanov and Vera marry, and live happily together for the rest of the novel.

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These strategies are designed —as Chernyshevsky himself tells us- to highlight the fact that the portrait of Rakhmetov is intended to spur the reader to revolutionary commitment. Vera runs her business as a cooperative, with all the women living together and sharing the profits.

Eventually, Kirsanov and Vera marry, and all live happily ever after.

The two eventually realize that Lopukhov can save Vera from a loveless marriage and a lifelong servitude to her family by marrying her, and he does so, snatching her out from under the nose of her mother and unwanted suitor. This preface both hides and signals to alert readers the way to decipher the revolutionary ambiguities: Years later, in conversation with a fellow-revolutionary, Lenin described the profound impression made upon him by What Is to Be Done?: Why has he been introduced then?

An introduction by Katz and Wagner places the novel in the context of nineteenth-century Russian social, political, and intellectual history and literature, and explores its importance for several generations of Russian radicals.

A Plot Summary | What Is to Be Done?

He completely transformed my outlook. The key figure in this ferment was Nikolai Chernyshevsky, philosopher, Westernizer, teacher, polemicist, underground revolutionary, literary and social critic of the leading journal of the time, The Contemporary, political prisoner and exile.

The highly autocratic Tsar Nicholas had died, to general relief and rejoicing, inand the new Tsar, Alexander II had introduced reforms, culminating in the emancipation of the peasants in Vera sets up a small business as a seamstress, and with the help of some other girls, the business takes off and expands; they open branches, and run the operation as a cooperative, with all the girls living together and sharing the profits.

They are few in number, but they put others in a position to breathe, others who without these few would have been suffocated. Lih has suggested that Lenin's pamphlet has been widely misinterpreted partly by mistranslations of key terms used by Lenin.

Katz's readable and compelling translation is now the definitive unabridged English-language version, brilliantly capturing the extraordinary qualities of the original.

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Come up out of your godforsaken underworld, my friend, come up. The Revolution A Plot Summary The story begins with Vera Pavlovna living under the rule of her oppressive mother who wants to marry her off to the son of their tenement block owner.

The first is that the essence of Lenin's outlook is his loss of confidence in the workers and his fear of their "spontaneity" "stikhiinost". Rakhmetov is both a symbol of the necessity for commitment to revolution, and a symbol of the utilitarian aesthetic: Katz's translation is faithful to the original, yet cast in words that bring Chernyshevsky's meaning alive to modern readers The book created an instantaneous sensation.

Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without; that is, only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers.